


What we want

by Rand0mR3belWithoutAClause05



Category: How to Fight (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Spoilers, ultra rare pair aka the pairing doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29579175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rand0mR3belWithoutAClause05/pseuds/Rand0mR3belWithoutAClause05
Summary: It’s a fact only known to himself, but Taehoon’s mantra has two sections to it. The first part was created when he met a certain boy.- You should do what you want to do.The second was made only when that boy left his side.- But it doesn’t mean you’ll always get what you want.
Relationships: endgame is seong joon x taehoon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. What we want is uncertain.

“Hello. This is Yeonwoo speaking.”

“Hey, bastard.”

“Ah, Taehoon.”

Yeonwoo’s smile could be heard over the phone. It leaves something warm simmering in his chest. Taehoon has the sudden urge to bury himself in blankets.

“I wanted to talk to you about... the situation right now-“ he hesitates.

It isn’t like him to stall.

“-It’s about Hobin.”

“Hobin? Is he the- oh, oh, okay, nevermind. I got it. Yeah, what about him?”

Yeonwoo isn’t that close to Hobin. He’s barely seen Hobin twice, he wouldn’t understand. Taehoon almost ends the call, but something’s stopping him.

“I... “ Taehoon huffs. “You know about the Hobin company and the... XJ company shit that’s been going on, right? With Hobin’s mom and uh...”

Yeonwoo interjects softly, “Taehoon, I know what’s been going on.”

It came as a surprise that Yeonwoo would keep himself updated about such things. Maybe someone else inside Hobin Company was informing him- Taehoon made a mental note to find out.

“Whatever’s on your mind, you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone else,” Yeonwoo continues.

“When did we get so close?” Taehoon scoffs. “It’s just... ah, fuck. I’m just worried about Hobin, that little shit. That’s it.”

Yeonwoo is silent for a while. “Seong Joon is... dangerous. I’ve not personally fought him, but he’s extremely strong. He-“

It was as if a branch had snapped underfoot, for now all the living creatures in Taehoon’s twisted jungle of a heart were startled and afraid. “Hobin could die,” he blurts out.

“T-Taehoon, I... I don’t know what you mean.”

He laughs, but it was not joyful. It was laughter that had a bad quality to it, a laughter men gave in their darkest moments. “Of course you don’t. You- you all, you all could never understand. Best case scenario, he’ll be crippled.Seong Joon’s in the yakuza. The fucking  yakuza , and we didn’t even know. Oh fuck, why did we even get mixed up in this...”

Yeonwoo was silent.

“ Guns , Yeonwoo. No matter how good Taekwondo is, it can’t stop a bullet. Heck, even a fucking choke a few seconds too long could just... if Hobin wins, he’ll be silenced one way or another. If Hobin loses, fuck- he’s dead. They won’t like any loose ends.” 

“The  yakuza ? Things are this bad?” Yeonwoo finally says, his voice trembling with something akin to barely suppressed anger.

“Yes! Yes it fucking is-“

“Then why didn’t you stop him from picking a fight with them?”

“I don’t- I didn’t fucking know either!”

“I-“ Yeonwoo scoffs in disbelief. “You’re an adult, Taehoon. You should’ve... at least thought before you jumped in straight after him like an  idiot !”

“Adult my ass- Hobin and I are the  same fucking age !”

The ensuing silence is hell.

“Fuck, Yeonwoo... What the hell am I supposed to tell him?  How do I even tell him? How do you tell someone that they need their mom to continue being humiliated on camera? I’m scared out of my goddamn mind because he’s going to get hurt and it’s going to be my fault. And you saying that it  is , doesn’t fucking help, alright? I know it is. I know. I called you because you’re the only person I could call and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. So I’m begging you-“ he chokes up, grits his teeth and forces the words out. “-to be a bit less of a bitch because god knows I cannot fucking take it right now, okay?”

“Okay,” Yeonwoo says after a long pause. “Okay.”

Taehoon sinks down onto the floor, mutes his microphone, and weeps.  Pathetic .

“Sorry.” Yeonwoo’s voice comes through the speakers. “It was a... shock for me. I’m really sorry. I get that you’re really worried for them. And... I’m scared too. Seong Joon nearly killed my father. And he could have, you know. He could have. He just  chose not to. We need to make sure that never happens again. Once,” he lets out a sad little laugh, “is it enough.”

Taehoon thinks of Dowoon’s little smile in that picture, a hesitant flower unfurling in all its youthful glory. “Enough,” he echoes, then again in a louder voice, “ Enough .” As if the words could move, could sing and wail if he said it louder.

“You have to stop this. Before anyone gets hurt, you have to stop this. Tell him, that his mom would have to suffer and he would have to watch. I don’t care how he reacts. Go up to him, grab his collar and shout it in his face. If everything fails, force him to surrender. Make him give his channel up. As long as he doesn’t pose a threat to Seong Joon anymore, him and his friends will be safe.” Yeonwoo’s voice was growing louder, and Taehoon could picture it, him sitting in his little cubicle, worksheets tossed aside, legs pulled up to his chest, microphone to his lips. And his eyes, his bright determined eyes, glued to the moon hanging in the night sky, right beyond the window.

Taehoon whispers to himself, “I don’t want-“

“-You have to. You have to, no matter what it takes. If Hobin goes any further, it’s gonna turn out bad. Just like how... it turned out bad for my father. This isn’t about the money anymore. This is about his life. And the life of what, three, four other kids?”

Taehoon scrunches his eyes shut and lets out a muffled scream.

“Hobin will be angry. Really angry. But at least a mother will still have her child. He can still live a good life. He’ll have his friends.” Yeonwoo pauses.

Not including me,  Taehoon thinks bitterly. Then he immediately rebukes himself- what a selfish, childish thought.

“Enough,” he repeats. He thunks his head on the wall behind him. It makes a muffled, hollow sound on the concrete. “Enough.” Enough, and never again.

It will not take two lives for him to learn one lesson.

Never. Again.

“Sorry.” There is guilt in Yeonwoo’s voice. And hesitation too, wondering if he had gone too far. “I shouldn’t have said it like that.”

Taehoon’s lips curl in a mockery of a laugh.  Maybe you shouldn’t have,  he thinks.  But it is what it is.

“I don’t presume to know you, any one of you, that well. So I can’t really comfort you or anything like that. But,I’d like to come by your dojang tomorrow evening, to have have dinner. Or fight, whichever you’d prefer,” Yeonwoo adds with a little laugh.

Why ? Taehoon wonders. Then, a hysterical, outlandish thought dawned upon him- why not? 

“I’m bringing food, by the way. And if you ignore me, I’ll eat it outside your door. And I’ll eat your portion too.”

_ Ji Yeonwoo. Once you started living for yourself, you’ve become a real annoying bastard _ \- Taehoon smiles fondly.  _ My annoying bastard. _

“Um. Taehoon? Are you still there? You haven’t hung up yet, so I assume...” the other man trails off. “I really hope I didn’t upset you too much. Sorry, I’m not really good with words. I- uh... ah, shit.”

Taehoon giggles, then it turns into loud, bellowing laughs, until he’s shaking, until more hot tears spill out in wet little sobs, because  _ god _ it’s been lonely. In this empty dojang, without lights or wind, only the walls and mats and floor in rigid corners, and no breath of life within it. There are only echoes around here, of boys’ laughter, joyful laughter that had an innocent quality about it, breathy with exertion and fatigue. But boys grow up, and boys die, and boys are fickle, cruel things. They will make themselves your whole world and then leave with barely a goodbye.

Once, is enough.

“I will,” he says, words that Yeonwoo cannot hear. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save him.”

He smiles at the ceiling fan that’s spinning leisurely in the darkness. The sweat on his back is drying, sticking the dobok to him like a second skin.

Another tear rolls down. He doesn’t really feel it anymore.

The sadness clings to him like summer heat, sticky and humid, carcasses decomposing and boiling up in a big pressure cooker.

“I’m not going until you talk to me, Taehoon. Just make a sound. Do anything. Please?”

How he wants to unmute himself, break the spell- let it all spill out his lips-  _ Yeonwoo, please, please help me, stay with me, I think something bad is going to happen- _

It’s a fact only known to himself, but Taehoon’s mantra has two sections to it. The first part was created when he met a certain boy. 

_ You should do what you want to do.  _

The second was made only when that boy left his side.

_ But it doesn’t mean you’ll always get what you want. _

He hangs up, though it feels like his heart is being torn apart.


	2. What we want is gone.

He knows he shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have opened the door of his dojo today. He knows he should have installed a peephole. He doesn’t know why he let this man in.

“This is where you stay? At your dojang? That’s very committed of you.” The man in front of him is currently strutting around like a proud peacock. In his blue suit and tie, the same one he wore at the night of the award ceremony, which only brought Taehoon an indescribable amount of anger welling up deep inside him.

“Don’t fucking patronise me,” he spits. “You’ve seen enough, Seong Joon, now get the hell out.”

He’s still in his dobok, and it’s early in the morning. He had woken up, full of determination regarding Hobin and the entire shitshow that came with him. He had told himself it would be a good day, or at least a day as good as he could make it. That all the crying and dilemma and dramatic bitching was over and done with. Yeonwoo was going to visit, and they would talk, and finally start over. He would be fully himself again.

And now this. Fuck.

Taehoon’s eyes are stinging a little. Maybe he hasn’t fully recovered from last night yet, and can’t handle any more of this. His hands are trembling by his sides, from rage or anxiety he isn’t quite sure. Usually he’d love a fight, to spin and kick and soar. But not right now. Right now he was a stranger in Seong Taehoon’s body, weak and helpless.

Seong Joon inspects him loftily. “You and your company have the audacity to come into _my_ place. _My_ restaurant. And pick a fight. Why, Taehoon, you can dish it out but can’t take it.”

He thinks of how to rebuke, to protest, but all words fail him. All he could focus on was how much his head hurts from the anxiety starting again, the ache drowning nearly everything out. He’s too drained to fight anymore.

A break. He just wanted a break, for a few minutes. And there was this heaviness to his bones, this uncharacteristic heaviness, which told him, as it always did, that he would continue shutting down until there was some sort of reprieve from this torture.

“This is my home. What do you want from me?” This is his sacred dojang. For someone like Seong Joon to just walk in and- it was a fucking disgrace that Taehoon allowed this happen. He tries to keep his composure. The other man can’t notice how much this meeting has affected him, else it’d be like blood in the water.

Seong Joon doesn’t reply. He picks up a spare set of dobok in the corner. Taehoon identifies it as Hobin’s set, freshly washed, dried and ironed.

Seong Joon strokes the fabric in contemplation, and it feels like he’s being violated. The dojang is his heart, and someone was leaving their filthy fingerprints all over it, _touching_ everything and plucking all his strings- leaving his skin crawling.

It’s reaching a breaking point.

In a sudden burst of anger, he marches over and snatches the dobok out of Seong Joon’s hands, pressing it protectively to his chest. “Don’t put your hands on _anything_. It doesn’t belong to you.”

Purposely avoiding Seong Joon’s perceptive gaze, he stows it away carefully into another cupboard. Even then, the burning gaze in his peripheral vision leaves him feeling naked and cold.

“I’m not surprised that someone like you managed to sway Yeonwoo.” Seong Joon starts pacing again, inspecting the walls as if trying to derive some philosophical meaning out of the paint.

“I’m surprised that Yeonwoo managed to not lose his shit around a stuck up bitch like you,” Taehoon snaps back automatically. If Seong Joon wasn’t going to leave, then he would take the initiative, and haul the man along with him. Taehoon doesn’t bother changing to more comfortable clothes (not that he could, anyway, at this rate). So he throws on his favourite jacket, stuffs a few pieces of loose change into his pockets, all while ignoring Seong Joon’s uncomfortable presence in the room. It’s so frustrating that Taehoon _vibrates_ , lips perpetually parted in aborted attempts to shout. Seong Joon’s appearance had managed to press buttons he didn’t even know existed.

He didn’t detect the presence behind him until it was too late.

Seong Joon chuckles, warm breath brushing past his ear. It drives a shudder through him, raising goosebumps over every inch of skin, and lingering there like carpet burn.

He can’t do anything but let out trembling little breaths. Cold, long fingers wrap around his throat slowly, thumb digging into his nape. A little noise of alarm escapes from him, unbidden. He wants to lash out. From this angle he could attempt and land at least ten different kicks, to the side of the neck, the temple, the kidneys, with complete accuracy. He tenses and relaxes, trying to take the memorised feeling of the kicks and inject them into his muscles. He imagines the whip and snap of the tail end of a silk ribbon, and wills himself to _move_. But it was as if concrete had been poured into his limbs. The doorknob was just a few centimeters away. All he had to do was reach out and grab it. Taehoon notices for the first time, hysterically, that there was a chip in the paint, and little bits of lint and cotton fluff had gathered in it.

“Look at you. You’re _terrified_ of me,” Seong Joon murmurs. _Too much, too much_ \- Taehoon’s eyes flutter shut. He’s back in his empty dojang again, rocking back and forth, whispering to himself like a mantra, _I’m not afraid I’m not afraid-_

Does gunpowder smell like cologne? Taehoon thinks wildly.

Does cold steel feel like these fingers?

Then- _oh._

He _is_ terrified.

Another hand snakes his wrist, the touch light but devouring. Seong Joon’s hips are pressed against his, chest warm against his back, and Taehoon could feel every breath he took. It was an alive thing, scratching and crawling its way into his ribcage.

“You’re so _fucking_ scared, it’s beautiful.” Seong Joon’s grip on his neck tightens, so much that it’s getting hard to breathe.

Despite everything, Taehoon’s voice was steady when he asks,“Are you going to kill me?”

There seems to have been a threshold in himself that was crossed, a limit that was broken.

“Maybe. Who knows?”

It’s not a no.

And there, he has his answer.

Taehoon spins and lets his fist connect with Seong Joon’s face.

It was funny how they said Taekwondo wasn’t useful in practical battle. It was funny, because it was true. Because right now, Taehoon, with nothing but _survival_ screaming in his mind, has Seong Joon pinned down onto the floor, raining blows down on him.

_Taekwondo can’t block a bullet anyway. So he has to survive. Survive, by any way possible._

He’s hurled off, slamming into the wall. The back of his head explodes with pain. Seong Joon lunges for him, and he scrambles away, ears still ringing.

A rough yank on his ankles sends him crashing down onto the floor. It feels like stakes are being stabbed through his brain, and a pained cry erupts from his throat. Cologne and blood is an odd combination on his tongue. Seong Joon straddles him, crushing his shoulder in the process. Distinctly, it makes a muffled crunching sound. In a last hurrah, Taehoon latches his fingers onto Seong Joon’s suit collar, pulling down, simultaneously hooking his legs around Seong Joon’s hips.

With a roar, he flips them around, shoulder screaming out in protest. A gi choke.

He has to survive. _Survive_.

He crushes harder. Seong Joon’s eyes are alight with fury, hair a wild halo around him, face turning slightly purple from a lack of oxygen. It’s hard for him to escape now, with both of his legs trapped. But his two hands, two desperate vengeful hands, reach up and slot around Taehoon's throat.

“No-” Taehoon cries, voice hoarse and shaking- “No, no, no, no- why can’t you just _die_? Please die, please die-”

His voice cuts off and so does his windpipe.

Everything’s turning hazy. He’s drowning.

 _Survive_ , every fiber of him screams.

But no, Taehoon isn't really fond of that part of himself anymore, that raw animalistic edge. And there is a gentle voice he’s hearing, one that says _protect._

So he doesn’t let go.

The exact moment Seong Joon realises that is glorious. His eyes widen impossibly, struggles getting more frantic.

_I’ll do whatever it takes to save them._

Beautiful fear is racing through him, choking and strangling and-

None of them will give up now.

But in the end, it is still Taehoon who runs out of breath first.


End file.
